Norman McFarlane was just out of high school when he was conscripted for national service and sent to Angola.

Like so many other ordinary troopies, he was thrown into the horror, deprivation and banality of war. He recounts his loss of innocence in Angola, the subsequent ‘camps’ and his journey towards confronting his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Told with disarming honesty and humour, he gives voice to a generation of white South African men forced into a grisly, life-defining experience.

You may have read GG Alcock’s books about the kasi economy; now follow his journey to the dynamic world of KasiNomics and learn about the tribal forces that shaped him.

Born White Zulu Bred is the story of a white child and his brother raised in poverty in a Zulu community in rural South Africa during the apartheid era. His extraordinary parents, Creina and Neil Alcock, gave up lives of comfort and privilege to live and work among the destitute people of Msinga, whose material and social well-being became their mission. But more than that, this is a story about life in South Africa today which, through GG’s unique perspective, explores the huge diversity of the country’s people – from tribal Zulu warriors to sophisticated urban black township entrepreneurs. A journey from the arid wastes of Msinga into the thriving informal economies of urban townships.

GG’s view is that we do not live in a black and white world but in a world of contrast and diversity, one which he wants South Africans, and a world audience, to see for what it is without descending into racial and historical clichés. He takes us through the mazes of township marketplaces, shacks and crowded streets to reveal the proud and dignified world of township entrepreneurs who are transforming South Africa’s economy. This is the world that he moves in today as a successful businessman, still walking those spaces and celebrating the vibrant informal economies that are taking part in the KasiNomic Revolution.

GG’s story is about being truly African, even as a white person, and it draws on the adventures, the cultural challenges, the informal spaces and the future possibilities of South Africa.

'It is through that choice of taking a resistance road, the one less travelled, that I got to experience a liberated life.'

Patric Tariq Mellet took his first steps on this road at the tender age of 8 and by 13, he engaged in his first consequential and difficult political act. He organised a fast in his high school to protest the killing of anti-apartheid cleric, Imam Abdullah Haron in detention. The match had been lit. Arbitrarily classified as 'white' despite his heritage and family, he was ordered to join the armed forces. He refused as he could not take up arms against his own people. Instead he heeded the call of OR Tambo and joined resistance as an MK in exile.

Mellet's autobiography demonstrates a spirit of innate and unbridled resistance, in small and major ways, that liberated Cleaner's Boy from an unpromising and tragic early life to a life of influence driven by a deep understanding of identity. A freedom fighter, a mystic and always a firebrand.

In Troep! vertel meer as ’n honderd oud-troepe wat hulle onthou van diensplig: om op skool opgeroep te word, te gaan oorlog maak en twee jaar later weer huis toe te kom. Tussenin lê stories van varkpanne, tiekiebokse, twee-komma-viers, boeliebief, die DB, ryloop, pakkies, bosbussies, naweekpas, ratpacks, stof, Buffels, landmyne en skrapnel – en ook herinneringe van vriende, seuns en broers wat nie teruggekom het nie.

Bun Booyens voeg al hierdie stemme saam tot die verhaal van die uitsonderlike dinge wat duisende gewone seuns beleef het. Hierdie stories sal ’n snaar by veterane roer, en hul naastes help om te verstaan watter dinge hierdie mense vandag steeds met hulle saamdra – dit wat hulle onthou, maar ook dit wat hulle nie kan vergeet nie.

How the three independent asset managers Coronation, Allan Gray and Investec (later Ninety One) , dubbed the CIA, came to dominate and continue to dominate the South African asset management industry, particularly the pension fund market.

There are plenty of colourful big ego personalities such as Hendrik du Toit at Ninety One, Leon Campher at Coronation and the late Allan Gray plus kingmakers reshaping thr industry such as Patrice Motsepe.

Captain Jonathan Morris, the Confessor Cop, used empathy to extract confessions from even the toughest criminals. With a 99% success rate, his cases, from catching serial killer Jimmy Maketta to investigating the Sizzler’s Massacre, earned him the respect of prosecutors and profilers. In this memoir, Michael Behr explores Morris’s high-profile investigations and personal struggles, revealing the man behind the badge in a gripping blend of true crime and personal story.

In this captivating collection of essays, Tinyiko Maluleke invites his readers on a journey that begins with his eventful boyhood in Soweto and his life-changing sojourn in Limpopo. His reflections on the roles of his mother, maternal grandmother and aunts in his upbringing will melt many hearts. In a deep sense of the word, this is a ‘feminist’ book with large sections profiling and promoting the contribution of women in national development.

Included in this memoir is the story of Maluleke’s journey through academia, his rise through the ranks, and the many lessons he learnt along the way. All the while, Maluleke presents his story as a microcosm of the human story of all South Africans, challenging his readers to rethink the history of the country, villages, townships and their own selves.

Maluleke does not pull any punches in the essays where he provides analysis of critical issues facing the country. Deploying solid scholarship, to undergird a variety of literary genres and writing strategies, Maluleke’s book is also a compendium of and an ode to the moments, places and people – celebrated and ordinary – who have shaped and continue to shape his outlook. His profiling of a few fellow university leaders is particularly riveting.

Faces and Phases of Resilience will make you think, laugh, yell and cry. In a way, this book is not merely an individual memoir, it is the memoir of a country, a memoir of a historical epoch and a memoir of a people – it is an invitation to the tragedy, the beauty and the hope that define South Africa.

The book ends, forty-nine chapters later, with a heart-rending essay on the bane of xenophobia, foretelling the death of Maluleke, chillingly titled, ‘The Day I Die’.

This is the first full biography from childhood of the eminent British Architect Sir Herbert Baker. Written with the full cooperation of his family and with access to his archive and private papers, it gives an account of his remarkable life as the leading architect to the British Empire. From London, through the commemoration of the empire's war dead in France, via South Africa and Australia to India, he celebrated the might of an empire that once ruled a quarter of the world. He was an intimate friend of many of most fascinating men of his age, including Cecil Rhodes, Lawrence of Arabia, John Buchan, Jan Smuts and, of course, his fellow architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. After a Victorian architectural apprenticeship in London and on to becoming the most prolific architect of his age in South Africa, he built the new imperial capital of New Delhi in India with Lutyens, before returning to London. These built or rebuilt such landmark buildings as the Bank of England, South Africa House, India House, Rhodes House, and the stands for Lords Cricket Ground, as well as numerous churches and private houses.

Op die Spoorweg neem lesers mee in Suid-Afrika se lewendige spoorwegerfenis. Ontdek die ingenieurswonderwerke wat die moeilike terreine oorwin het en die lewendige spoorwegdorpe wat gemeenskappe onderhou.Williams skroom nie om die bitter werklikheid van rasseskeiding te bespreek nie. Hy balanseer vaardig die glans van die spoorweë teen die skerp waarhede.

Dit is 1713. VOC-admiraal Johannes van Steelant bring sy ryklik belaaide retoervloot via die Kaapse diensstasie terug na Nederland uit Batavia. Saam op die vlagskip, sy vyf jong kinders. Op die oop see raak hulle een-een siek. Hete koors, maagpyn, swere – die gevreesde pokke.

Op 12 Februarie gaan die gesin, nou almal gesond, aan land in Tafelbaai. Hul skeepsklere word gewas in die VOC se slawelosie. Enkele maande later is byna die helfte van die Kaapse bevolking dood aan pokke.

In Retoervloot bring VOC-kenner Dan Sleigh dié gegewe, en die verbysterende werkinge van die VOC-retoervlootstelsel, lewend voor die oog. Aan die hand van Van Steelant se nuut-ontdekte skeepsjoernaal, met die agtergrondinkleding wat ’n meesterlike geskiedkundige soos Sleigh kan bied, staan die leser op die dek van vlagskip Sandenburg – ’n magtige skip van ’n roemryke organisasie, dog uitgelewer aan die woedende oseaan. Verder is Retoervloot ’n gedenksteen vir Kaapstad se grootste ramp tot op hede

In ’n pragtige plattelandse dorpie ontvou ’n ondenkbare tragedie. Deveney Nel, ’n talentvolle 16-jarige, se lewe eindig skielik, en die gemeenskap, saam met die res van die land, is geruk. Julian Jansen, skrywer van topverkoperboeke soos Moord op Stellenbosch, het as misdaadverslaggewer vir Rapport van die begin af oor die saak geskryf. Hy benut sy uitgebreide kontakte binne die polisie, sowel as onderhoude met vriende en familie om die gebeure te rekonstrueer en om Deveney Nel te eer.

Julian Jansen, author of bestselling true crime books like The De Salze Murders, tells the Devené Nel story.

As Rapport’s crime reporter, Julian Jansen has written about the case from the start. He draws on his extensive contacts in the police and interviews with friends and family to reconstruct the events leading to the tragedy, and to honour the murdered young girl. He also investigates the failures of the state and draws lessons on how it can be prevented from happening again.

Dr Franklin Sonn is a struggle icon, diplomat, educationalist and business leader.

He was born in the Vosburg district of Victoria West. As a civil rights campaigner, he was arrested for leading a protest march in 1989. He later served as rector of the (Cape) Peninsula Technikon and as head of the Cape Teachers' Professional Association. He was a good friend and confidant of Nelson Mandela.

In 1995, Madiba asked him to be South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, USA. Sonn celebrated his 85th birthday on 11 October 2024.

Drawing on Nelson Mandela's own unfinished memoir, Dare Not Linger is the remarkable story of his presidency told in his own words and those of distinguished South African writer Mandla Langa 'I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.' Long Walk to Freedom.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa's citizens, black and white, were equal before the law.

Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela's presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela's unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela's presidency, a country in flux and the creation of a new democracy. It tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcome to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.

On the Railway takes readers through South Africa’s rich railway history, from Estcourt to the grand steam engines on narrow gauges. David Williams highlights luxurious trains like the White and Blue Trains, and the vital role of goods trains in the economy. He explores engineering feats that tamed tough terrains and the growth of railway towns. The book also addresses racial segregation, the decline of the rail network, and reflects on the past and uncertain future of South African railways.

Jan Smuts is revered by some as a national and international statesman, but he is condemned by others as an architect of segregation. In his new book, prize-winning author Bongani Ngqulunga examines Smuts’s political life in terms of how it affected black people.

He considers the impact of Smuts’s role in the treaty ending the Anglo-Boer War and the National Convention that created the Union of South Africa. He follows Smuts’s actions as a minister under Louis Botha, as prime minister from 1919 to 1924 and again from 1939 to 1948, and his relationship with Barry Hertzog’s National Party, first in opposition and then in a fused South African Party. Ngqulunga concentrates on the events and policies that affected black people directly, and he presents the views of people such as Sol Plaatje, Alfred Xuma, John Dube, D.D.T. Jabavu and Z.K. Matthews – and, later on, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. He shows how Smuts evolved in his views, eventually coming to recognise that segregation had failed. But the reforms he introduced in the 1940s were too little, too late, and were swept away by the National Party and its policy of apartheid.

Giving a balanced view that is both respectful and critical, Under Smuts’s Rule is a vital addition to the literature on Smuts and to South African history.

Spanning nearly 100 years, Faith & Defiance: The Life of Sally Motlana tells the story of one of South Africa’s most eminent women activists and community builders - Sally Bampifeletseng (Maunye) Motlana.

Born of humble roots in the old village of Moremela near Pilgrims Rest in the then-Transvaal, Sally grew into a fierce activist and voice of the oppressed who answered the call when she saw all that needed to be done in the struggle for freedom and a democratic South Africa. As a toddler, Sally moved to Johannesburg with her mother, where they joined her father and lived first in Vrededorp and then Sophiatown. Educated at St Cyprian’s School, she was taken under the wing of esteemed Anglican missionary Father Trevor Huddleston.

Profoundly influenced by her religious upbringing, she developed a passionate protectiveness of the poor – especially women and children– and an unquenchable thirst for justice that never diminished during her numerous detentions and harassment by the Security Police. Instead of a straight biography, author Mukoni Ratshitenga has skilfully crafted a riveting account of a woman and her country, rich with vignettes and fascinating encounters of great historical significance.

One of the many encounters in the book tells how during his hiding from the police for seventeen months before his arrest in 1962, Nelson Mandela, visited Sally at her Dube home and what transpired thereafter. Another tells how during one of her spells of detention in 1978 at Jeppe Police station, she came across two Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) combatants who had been detained there after they had been deployed from Tanzania. Fearing that they would be killed, she hatched and executed a daring plan for their escape - all whilst being detained herself.

The book contains many accounts of Sally’s fearlessness in the face of apartheid police harassment and brutality. It highlights how her commitment to the struggle for liberation and her deep Christian faith reinforced each other. Faith & Defiance: The Life of Sally Motlana is a record of both the brutality of apartheid and colonialism and the determination of one woman to fight it and through her story, the story of millions.

One of the most celebrated political leaders of our time, Nelson Mandela has been written about by many biographers and historians. But in one crucial area, his life remains largely untold: his marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

During his years in prison, Nelson grew ever more in love with an idealised version of his wife, courting her in his letters as if they were young lovers frozen in time. But Winnie, every bit his political equal, found herself increasingly estranged from her jailed husband’s politics. Behind his back, she was trying to orchestrate an armed seizure of power, a path he feared would lead to an endless war.

Jonny Steinberg tells the tale of this unique marriage – its longings, its obsessions, its deceits – making South African history a page-turning political biography. Winnie and Nelson is a modern epic in which trauma doesn’t affect just the couple at its centre, but an entire nation.

It is also a Shakespearean drama in which bonds of love and commitment mingle with timeless questions of revolution, such as whether to seek retribution or a negotiated peace. Steinberg reveals, with power and tender emotional insight, how far these forever-entwined leaders would go for each other and where they drew the line. For in the end, both knew theirs was not simply a marriage, but a struggle to define anti-apartheid policy itself.

Life is frequently about ‘turning up’ and Tony Leon was present at the making of history both big and small.

Being There is a frank and insightful collection of insider accounts from a life in politics. The centrepiece is Leon’s riveting diary of the GNU negotiations that went down to the wire following the 2024 elections. This is the first and only inside account of these talks.

He also casts his gimlet eye on the fault lines of the Middle East, shares ambassadorial adventures in Argentina, and outlines the perils of political party fundraising. Written in Leon’s vintage style – observant, witty, acerbic – he proves the maxim that much of success is simply about being there.

In The Syndicate of Twenty-two Natives Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo offers an elegy to her father, the late Professor Stan Sangweni, which explores the personal saga of a family’s lineage rooted in eZuka on Suspence Farm, Newcastle, in what is now northern KwaZulu-Natal.

In turn, Prof Sangweni opens a window into a past where his grandfather, with foresight and ingenuity, became part of The Syndicate of Twenty-two Natives, a group that secured land for their families, including his family of seven wives, and for succeeding generations at a time when Black people in South Africa were being systematically dispossessed of their land.

While packing up her father’s study as her parents prepare to move from their home after 27 years, Lindiwe and her father uncover his lifelong collection of documents and pictures that detail the intricacies of his life as a devoted family man, an ANC veteran and anti-apartheid activist, a pioneer of public service excellence in post-apartheid South Africa and an inveterate stickler for detail in every aspect of his life. Inspiring, often humorous, occasionally cataclysmically disruptive and generally victorious, this memoir is a tribute and a testament to the enduring legacy of those who pave the way amidst the trials of history for future generations.

Forgiveness Redefined is Candice Mama’s honest and healing story. It tells how she found ways to deal with the death of her father, Glenack Masilo Mama, and to forgive the notorious apartheid assassin Eugene de Kock, the man responsible for his brutal murder. We follow Candice’s journey of discovering how her father died, how this affected her and how she battled the demons of depression before the age of sixteen. But most importantly, we follow her journey towards beating the odds and rising above her heartbreaks.

Candice Mama is today still under the age of 30, but has been named as one of Vogue Paris’ most inspiring women alongside glittering names such as Michelle Obama. She has taken backstage selfies with music crooner Seal and travels all over the world to talk about her journey. This bubbly, inspiring young author tells how she shed some of the worst layers of grief and became an inspiration for others. We learn about her perplexing, unconventional childhood, her search for identity, and the beautiful bond she formed, posthumously, with a father she never had the opportunity to get to know in person. She also tells, in her own words, about the life-changing encounter between her family and her father’s killer.

Candice tenderly opens up about the result of the trauma of her father’s death on her entire family, and meeting her mother for the first time at the age of four. She tells about the confusing, yet fascinating, dynamics that later unfolded as she discovered pieces of herself, rediscovered relationships with her own family and came to forgiveness and understanding.

This book serves as inspiration for other young – and older – people to look at their own stories through different lenses. Candice’s experiences are not unique, and she offers healing thoughts to others who suffered similar trauma by sharing the details of her own story. Forgiveness Redefined is a touching, personal story by a young woman who learned too early about pain, loss and rejection – but who also learned how to overcome those burdens and live joyfully.

Jan Christiaan Smuts was world famous as a soldier, statesman and intellectual, one of South Africa’s greatest leaders. Yet little is said or written about him today, even though we appear to live in a leadership vacuum.

Unafraid of Greatness is a re-examination of the life and thoughts of Smuts. It is intended to remind a contemporary readership of the remarkable achievements of this impressive soldier-statesman. Richard Steyn argues that Smuts’s role in the creation of modern South Africa should never be forgotten, not least because of his lifetime of devoted service to this country. The book draws a parallel between Smuts and President Thabo Mbeki, both architects of a new South Africa, much lionised abroad yet often distrusted at home.

This highly readable account of Smuts’s eventful life blends fact, anecdote and opinion in an examination of his complex character – his relationships with women, spiritual and intellectual life, and role as adviser to world leaders. Politics and international affairs lie at the heart of this book, but Smuts’s unique contributions in a variety of other fields, including botany, conservation and philosophy, also receive attention.

Unafraid of Greatness does not shy away from the contradictions of its subject. While Smuts was one of the architects of the United Nations and a great champion of human rights, he could not come to terms with the need to include the African majority in the politics of his own country

The stories of Naz Gool Ebrahim and District Six are intimately linked; in fact it is hard to imagine the one without the other.

As the niece of Cissie Gool, Naz came from fighting stock. Strong women with strong voices ran in the family. So when the Apartheid Government declared 'the District', a slum in 1966 and announced plans to flatten it, Naz wasn’t about to lose all that she held dear without a fight. She became the voice of the voiceless, both in South Africa and in the USA and was nominated as ‘Woman of the Year’. Naz combined her radical political activism with her roles as devoted wife and mother to six children. Up until the end of her life in 2005, she worked tirelessly to oppose the evil of racial segregation.

To her opponents, she was an indomitable adversary, but to her friends she was ‘Naz – Raz-a-ma-tazz’, a great lady who certainly knew how to tell a story and put on a good show.

Dayspring is a recollection of C.J. Driver’s South African youth – his childhood as a reverend’s son in Kroonstad and Makhanda preceding his extraordinary student years at the University of Cape Town, during which he edited the student newspaper Varsity and became enmeshed in radical student politics.